Incumbent Re-Election Rates In The 2010 Mid-Terms

If history is any guide, then it seems very likely that we’ll see something in the range of 90-94% of the incumbents in the House of Representatives who are up for election win their races. As 1994 demonstrates, of course, this still means that there could be a change in party control, but a change in party control is not the same thing as a change in personnel. In the Senate, on the other hand, a change of, say, six seats would drop of the incumbent re-election rate to 81%, but would not give the Republicans control of the Senate. To do that, they’d need to pick up 11 10 seats, which seems incredibly unlikely.

Given all the natural advantages they have, I think it’s fairly clear that most incumbents in Congress will survive this wave of anti-incumbency just like they’ve survived all the others.

So, despite the changes that many are calling “historic,” the fact of the matter is that incumbents were, for the most part, as safe in 2010 as they have been in previous elections.

Update: A commenter brings up the issue of incumbent retirements so I went and took a look at the numbers:

There were 15 open Senate seats (8 Democratic, 7 Republican). Of those 4 flipped to the opposing party, all of those were seats formerly held by a Democrat being won by a Republican. That gives us a party open seat retention rate of 73% in the Senate

There were 45 open House seats (24 Democratic, 21 Republican). Of those, 16 flipped to the opposing party, all but one of those (Delaware-At Large) were Democratic seats that went Republican. that gives us a retention rate of 64%

Comments

Looking over your chart, it would appear that the House saw the lowest incumbent re-election rate since 1970. Considering how much more gerrymandering affects the competitiveness of districts nowadays, I’d say you understate the significance of the shift. Raw numbers rarely tell the whole story.

I don’t know who framed the election is anti incumbent in the first place. Was that what we were looking for from the election? I was looking at if the Republicans were going to get the Senate or not and how many governorships they would pick up. Factor in retirees and governors into these numbers and I’m sure we’re looking at something that only has happened a handful of times before.

In Texas the Republicans have the most seats in 141 years or something. Russ Fiengold was tossed in WI, and the other commenter is correct; many saw the writing on the wall and retired.

2010 was an “anti-incumbent year” mostly insofar as a lot of the incumbents were Democrats and it was a Republican year. There were an unusual number of primary losses, it seems like, but that happens so rarely that a couple of oddities can look like huge shifts.

Regarding the senate votes, one of the big reasons that incumbents did so well is that the less popular party had rather few seats to defend. The Democrats were extraordinarily lucky in this regard. If they had to defend their 2012 seats, including those that got in on the wave of 2006, you likely would have seen significantly greater losses.

Given the years you cite (1964-2010), how atypical was this election? How many standard deviations away from the mean was it? That is the rational and sensible way to analyze the results. Anything else is just empty posturing.